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The Firm of Nucingen-Part9_Honore de Balzac(1799-1850)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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justifying laws passed on the spur of the moment."

"He is right," said Blondet. "What times we live in, gentlemen! When



the fire of intelligence appears among us, it is promptly quenched by

haphazard legislation. Almost all our lawgivers come up from little



parishes where they studied human nature through the medium of the

newspapers; forthwith they shut down the safety-valve, and when the



machinery blows up there is weeping and gnashing of teeth! We do

nothing nowadays but pass penal laws and levy taxes. Will you have the



sum of it all!--There is no religion left in the State!"

"Oh, bravo, Blondet!" cried Bixiou, "thou hast set thy finger on the



weak spot. Meddlesome taxation has lost us more victories here in

France than the vexatious chances of war. I once spent seven years in



the hulks of a government department, chained with bourgeois to my

bench. There was a clerk in the office, a man with a head on his



shoulders; he had set his mind upon making a sweepingreform of the

whole fiscalsystem--ah, well, we took the conceit out of him nicely.



France might have been too prosperous, you know she might have amused

herself by conquering Europe again; we acted in the interests of the



peace of nations. I slew Rabourdin with a caricature."[*]

[*] See Les Employes [The Government Clerks aka Bureaucracy].



"By RELIGION I do not mean cant; I use the word in its wide political

sense," rejoined Blondet.



"Explain your meaning," said Finot.

"Here it is," returned Blondet. "There has been a good deal said about



affairs at Lyons; about the Republic cannonaded in the streets; well,

there was not a word of truth in it all. The Republic took up the



riots, just as an insurgent snatches up a rifle. The truth is queer

and profound, I can tell you. The Lyons trade is a soulless trade.



They will not weave a yard of silk unless they have the order and are

sure of payment. If orders fall off; the workmen may starve; they can



scarcely earn a living, convicts are better off. After the Revolution

of July, the distress reached such a pitch that the Lyons weavers--the



canuts, as they call them--hoisted the flag, 'Bread or Death!' a

proclamation of a kind which compels the attention of a government. It



was really brought about by the cost of living at Lyons; Lyons must

build theatres and become a metropolis, forsooth, and the octroi



duties accordingly were insanely high. The Republicans got wind of

this bread riot, they organized the canuts in two camps, and fought



among themselves. Lyons had her Three Days, but order was restored,

and the silk weavers went back to their dens. Hitherto the canut had



been honest; the silk for his work was weighed out to him in hanks,

and he brought back the same weight of woven tissue; now he made up



his mind that the silk merchants were oppressing him; he put honesty

out at the door and rubbed oil on his fingers. He still brought back



weight for weight, but he sold the silk represented by the oil; and

the French silk trade has suffered from a plague of 'greased silks,'



which might have ruined Lyons and a whole branch of French commerce.

The masters and the government, instead of removing the causes of the



evil, simply drove it in with a violentexternalapplication. They

ought to have sent a clever man to Lyons, one of those men that are



said to have no principle, an Abbe Terray; but they looked at the

affair from a military point of view. The result of the troubles is a



gros de Naples at forty sous per yard; the silk is sold at this day, I

dare say, and the masters no doubt have hit upon some new check upon



the men. This method of manufacturing without looking ahead ought

never to have existed in the country where one of the greatest



citizens that France has ever known ruined himself to keep six

thousand weavers in work without orders. Richard Lenoir fed them, and



the government was thickheaded enough to allow him to suffer from the

fall of the prices of textile fabrics brought about by the Revolution



of 1814. Richard Lenoir is the one case of a merchant that deserves a

statue. And yet the subscription set on foot for him has no



subscribers, while the fund for General Foy's children reached a

million francs. Lyons has drawn her own conclusions; she knows France,






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